ISLAMABAD, May 26: The volume of two-way trade between Pakistan and India may reach $10 to 15 billion per annum in case of trade liberalisation by removing tariffs and non-tariff barriers, said a senior Pakistani diplomat.

With over one billion dollars worth of bilateral trade, the trans-border movement of goods has increased nearly five times during the last five years, but it is obviously a fraction of what it possibly could be, said Pakistan's Ambassador to WTO Dr Manzoor Ahmad while presenting country's paper on Indian trade policy review at Geneva.

The paper said most studies show that the potential bilateral trade volume between the two neighbours is worth about $10-15 billion per annum.

"Our business community feels that due to numerous non-tariff barriers and complications in sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) standards in Indian economy, the balance of trade remains heavily tilted in favour of India,", the envoy added.

India and Pakistan are not only geographical neighbours, but also share a common history.

"We are partners in Saarc free trade area, and are engaged in negotiating bilateral economic cooperation through a composite dialogue," he said.

Mr Ahmad said transparency is another concern faced by Pakistani exporters. It is usually hard to find a single official publication containing all the information on tariffs, fees and para-tariffs on imports, such as countervailing duty, special CVD, national calamity duty, additional excise duty and education cess, etc.

The tax rates keep changing from time to time, and the taxes levied by the state governments on inter-state commerce add further cost to doing business.

"We have raised some of our concerns through questions in writing and are looking forward to receiving their response," he added.

"We are confident that with added level of comfort at political level between the two neighbouring allies, the Indo-Pak cross-border trade is expected to take a quantum jump," he said.

The envoy said Pakistan valued Indian trade policy as a rewarding outcome of robust unilateral tariff reforms.

He added that while trade in industrial goods and services has shown a remarkable progress, the agriculture sector remains protected in India, hence a significant decline in growth of agriculture sector.

Some of the noteworthy achievements of India in the last six years include substantial reduction in overall applied MFN tariffs on industrial goods from 32.3 per cent to 15.8 per cent and reduction of peak tariff from 25 per cent to 10 per cent in the last four years.The growth in industrial sector averaging almost seven per cent per annum has been rapid.

The services sector has performed exceptionally well, growing at the rate of 9.8 per cent each year.

On the other hand, India's agriculture sector has remained protected with the result that compared with services and industrial sectors, this sector has seen decline in growth from three to two per cent.

Dr Manzoor said at multilateral negotiations, both India and Pakistan have common negotiating positions on a number of issues.

"We are working for seeking extensive reforms in agriculture sector, in particular steep reduction in trade distorting subsidies through our common membership of G-20.